EchoStar XIX, which has become known as JUPITER® 2, took flight on Sunday at Cape Canaveral Air Station in Florida on a monster Atlas V rocket. It is off to join EchoStar XVII, or JUPITER 1, in geosynchronous orbit over the equator. Together, JUPITER 1 and JUPITER 2 will comprise a complete, comprehensive network (another reason we're named Hughes Network Systems!) over the continental United States, parts of Alaska and Puerto Rico for our new Gen5 service plans.

We announced some of the details of Gen5 back in September at our 7th Annual HughesNet Summit in Jupiter Beach, Florida. After a couple of years of dealing with beam congestion in some areas and limited speeds in the mountain states on our SPACEWAY® satellite, imagine a world of faster plans with big data allowances in all corners of the continental United States! These are exciting times, indeed.

It will take a number of weeks for the JUPITER 2 satellite to reach geosynchronous orbit at 22,300 miles over the equator. That distance in space keeps the satellite in exactly the same position over the equator, even as the Earth rotates every 24 hours. Once the satellite reaches orbit, solar panels will deploy to keep the batteries fully charged, and the testing of the satellite will begin. Space Systems Loral (SSL), the manufacturer of the satellite, will complete the first round of testing. Once they are satisfied that everything is in proper working order, Hughes is handed control of the satellite, and we conduct our series of tests with our gateways and Network Operations Center. Finally, in early Q2 2017, we'll be ready to roll out Gen5!

Details of the new plans and programs should start to become available in January 2017.